Would you pay for TwitApps?

July 8th, 2010

I’ve had the same thought running around my head since putting the TwitApps domain names up for sale yesterday… would people pay for it?

The reason I shut it down is because it no longer held any interest for me, but that would change if I could get some meaningful revenue from it. I know a lot of people really liked the services, and a number of people have said they would be happy to pay for it, so I think it’s worth gauging the level of interest out there.

So, my proposal is that I get version 2 finished and put the site back up. I charge a monthly fee, let’s say £5 for arguments sake, and that gives you access to all the tools on the site (currently Replies and Follows). Existing subscribers would automatically get access to new tools I develop for the site.

Please give me your thoughts about this. If there’s enough interest (enough to pay for the hosting and my time) I’ll bring it back, better than ever!

Posted in Projects, Twitter | Comments

Twitter-related domains for sale

July 6th, 2010

I’ve been holding on to a bunch of domain names with plans for all of them, but I’ve decided that I’m unlikely to ever get around to using them, so I’ve decided to put them up for sale.

Rather than use an auction site I’ll be accepting offers by email on stuart at 3ft9 dot com until the end of July. The highest offer at midnight for each of the domains on August 1st, 2010 will win. Anyone making a bid will receive an email notifying them if they’re outbid. If people end up fighting for any of the domains I’ll continue to take bids into August until there’s only one bidder left.

I will accept payment in lots of different ways – ask me if you want to make sure your method will be acceptable. I’m based in the UK and it will be your responsibility to cover any charges incurred by your chosen method.

TwitApps.com/net/org

These previously hosted the TwitApps service, which I shut down last year. I also released the source code so if you wanted to recreate the service with the same domain name (it’s linked to from a number of sites, including Techcrunch) you now have the opportunity to do that.

If you buy these domain names (I’m also happy to split them, but not sure why you’d want that), I’d be happy to make myself available at my usual hourly rate to get the site back up and running, and/or finish v2, and/or provide support/maintenance as necessary. Actually, I’d be happy to do that for anyone, whether it’s with these domains or not .

The new owner of twitapps.com will also get the twitter accounts @twitapps, @ta_replies and @ta_follows thrown in. The ta_* accounts can be used to control the TwitApps service via direct messages.

TwitTools.com/net/org

I was going to use this for smaller one-off utilities like unfollowing everyone, or unfollowing people who don’t follow you, cross-referencing the followers of a group of users and following the commonalities; basically anything that you wouldn’t register with and use all the time. Can’t see myself getting around to that unfortunately.

There is no site that goes with these domains.

Twooer.com

Twooer was going to be a system that created a website by reading tweets from a number of different accounts and periodically updating a static website that presented them. Kinda like an aggregated micro blog. It was going to be open source, and would include options to process tweets to pull out images, videos, sites, etc, much like a lot of the web-based clients do.

This is one I may get back to at some point, but as of now there’s not much to it so there’s not much point releasing the code.

TopTwits.com

This would make an ideal domain for a number of ideas floating around my head, and I’m sure you can think of a few more.

TwitFeed.net

My plan for this was an alternative to TwitterFeed. Another idea I never got around to implementing, which is a shame because they could do with some decent competition!

And a few others

I also have the following available but they’ve not directly Twitter-related. Let me know if you’re interested in any of these…

agencyoptout.com
agileproject.net
buzzter.net/org
geekref.net
listarchives.org
listproxy.net
snippet.in
sucre.me
wafflers.net

Availability

This isn’t particularly related to this post but I have some consulting availability opening up shortly, so if you want to discuss retaining my services for whatever reason, let me know. Book now to avoid disappointment!

That’s all folks

Remember that while browsing my domain names, if you break it you buy it! My email address for any enquiries is stuart at 3ft9 dot com.

Enjoy.

Posted in Consulting, News, Projects, Twitter | Comments

TwitApps code released

October 14th, 2009

I finally got around to releasing the code for TwitApps on my github account. There is no license attached to this code so it’s in the public domain and anyone is free to do whatever they want with it. I don’t guarantee it will be easy to get working, or that it will work at all on your server, but if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me and I’ll do my best to help.

I’ve not provided much in the way of instructions at this point but I may add some next time I have a spare five minutes.

If you find a use for this code I’d love to hear about it so please let me know.

Enjoy.

Posted in Projects, Twitter | Comments

TwitApps shutting down

September 13th, 2009

Please retweet this so everyone who uses TwitApps finds out this is happening. Thanks.

It is with some regret that I am announcing that I will be shutting TwitApps down at the end of this month. I would like to say this has been a difficult decision but that’s not accurate.

I love Twitter and use it a lot, but I’m tired of developing for the API. It’s not that I don’t think the API team over there do a fantastic job, or that I think the API is bad, it’s a personal thing. It no longer excites me the way it once did, and this is part of the reason it’s taken a long time for me to get v2 finished, and it’s still not ready.

So I’ve decided to shut it down rather than continuing to fire-fight problems and pick away at the new version. I’d rather tell the several thousand users of the service have to find alternatives where the developers are more committed to it.

I’m sure I’ll continue to tinker with the Twitter API – I do find it fascinating, but that’s not the same as maintaining a quality product with users to answer to.

So here’s the plan…

All emails the system sends will contain a prominent message pointing at this blog post. I will not be emailing all users to let them know because bulk email is something I promised not to do in the T&Cs.
The website will continue to work until the end of this week, Friday, September 18th.
Both the replies and follows services will continue to run until the following Friday, September 25th.
After the 18th I will publish the source code on my github account.

This is somewhat disappointing but I feel confident it’s the best thing for the 4000+ users of TwitApps as well as my own sanity.

Update [14/09/09]: I’ve had a huge amount of feedback from people saying how sad they are about this, and I understand but nothing will convince me to keep it going. It’s my hope that by releasing the code the functionality will be available elsewhere in some shape or form.

I also want to categorically state that I will not consider releasing the source to anyone early, or allowing someone to take control of the site and service. This is something I’ve promised users since day one and I will not budge. I will also not entertain selling the user base for the same reasons. Please do not bother to contact me if this is what you’re going to ask.

Update [15/09/09]: I’ve had a number of people ask under what license I’ll be releasing the code. It will be in the public domain so there will be absolutely no restrictions on what you do with it. I’m not releasing it with a view to having people contribute so I see no need to control it.

Posted in News, Twitter | Comments

Server move: TitsUp.net

August 3rd, 2009

As part of an ongoing process we’ve just completed moving TitsUp.net to a new server. This fixes a number of issues, primarily the reliability of notifications and it now supports SSL sites.

If you’ve not seen it before then here’s what you need to know about TitsUp.net…

Allows you to check any domain name or URL to see if the HTTP service is responding correctly. Most commonly you’d use this to see if you’re the only one having problems.
If any problems are found you’ll get as detailed an error message as is possible.
The site will also offer to continually check it for the next 24 hours and will notify you by email and optionally with a tweet as soon as it’s working properly again. If it’s still not working after 24 hours you’ll get notified of that too.

TitsUp.net was created as a test for some of the technology behind a server monitoring service we have in development. More details on that coming soon.

Posted in Projects | Comments

New website

July 4th, 2009

Welcome to the new 3ft9 website. Prior to this we had a simple site with very little information and limited interaction features. This new site changes all that. Please let us know what you think so we can improve it where necessary.

Posted in News | Comments